Chocolate Fudge Cake

The moistest chocolate cake and the fudgiest chocolate frosting come together to make this super delicious Chocolate Fudge Cake. If you are a chocolate lover, then this cake will take you straight to chocolate heaven!

My previous post was about chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. I try to vary my posts as in one sweet and then one savoury post and so on and so forth but then this chocolate cake happened and I felt it was too yummy not to be shared. Hence here I am with another “sweet” post and another chocolate post at that which is funny considering what I’m going to reveal about myself in the next paragraph.

Unlike many women, I am, perhaps shockingly, not crazy about chocolate. As a child chocolate was admittedly, the ultimate flavour for me and chocolate bars, chocolate cakes and basically chocolate anything was my first love. Not anymore. I do like chocolatey things once in a while but it’s not something I would have all the time. Unless it is white chocolate, which I hopelessly adore to bits.

This Chocolate Fudge Cake is one of those few chocolatey things that even someone not fond of chocolate would find hard not to like. The cake part is deeply chocolate and moist plus the chocolate fudge icing is like eating a softened bar of milk chocolate; what’s not to love!

Normally, I like to pair my chocolate cakes with contrasting flavoured frostings such as vanilla or coffee but this cake was requested by a close friend for his Mom’s birthday and the only cake that that particular family eats is chocolate cake. So I made them the one chocolate on chocolate cake that I really like which is this Chocolate Fudge Cake. It did look quite lovely in my humble opinion and I felt I must share it on my blog.

The chocolate cake is made using my all-time favourite moist chocolate cake/cupcake recipe that I wrote about in detail in my previous post. It is an easy, straightforward and foolproof recipe that results in amazingly moist and lusciously chocolatey cakes and cupcakes.

The chocolate fudge frosting is actually a cocoa-based frosting and is a breeze to make plus it tastes wonderful. I have adapted it very slightly from this recipe by “Chocolate, Chocolate and More”. I am not a big fan of ganache type frostings and call my taste buds unsophisticated but my heart still belongs to the basic old-fashioned cocoa frostings of childhood.

I came across a photo of Pink Cherry Cake with Fudge Frosting by the bake queen “I Am Baker” sometime last year and instantly fell in love with how she had iced her cake. The frosting was done in an elegantly minimalist way with fudge icing rosettes crowning the cake and I knew I was going to try frosting a chocolate cake the same way one day. Well, I got my chance when I baked this Chocolate Fudge Cake; I am working on honing my cake frosting skills so one day I too can ice my cakes as flawlessly as “I Am Baker” does.

The best thing about this Chocolate Fudge Cake is that it reminds me of the chocolate birthday cakes my Mom would bake for my brother and I when we were kids. Since my Mom’s chocolate cake is the best chocolate cake in the world for me, anything that reminds me of it has to be a close second.

 

 

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Recipe Type: Desserts    Author: Alice In Eatland

Prep Time: 10 Minutes    Cook Time: 50 Minutes    Total Time: 60 Minutes    Serves: 6 – 8

 

Chocoholics, one bite of this sinful Chocolate Fudge Cake will take you straight to chocolate heaven! Moist chocolate cake & fudgy chocolate frosting – yum!

 

MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup milk
• 4 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 cups caster sugar or superfine sugar
• 1 cup + 3/4 cup plain flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or essence
• 2 tsp instant coffee
• 1 cup boiling water

 

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.
2. Grease a deep round cake pan (I use an 8″ by 3.5″ round cake pan) or two 8″ or 9″ round cake pans (cake pans should be a bit deep as this batter rises!) and line with parchment paper. Grease and flour the paper. Or line cake pan(s) with aluminium foil and grease and flour the foil. Set aside.
3. Stir the milk and vinegar together in a small cup or bowl to make buttermilk. Set aside.
4. Combine all the dry ingredients, except coffee, in a bowl.
5. Whisk the eggs. Stir the buttermilk and add to the eggs along with the oil and vanilla.
6. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until well mixed.
7. Stir the instant coffee into the boiling water and carefully stir into the cocoa mixture. Batter will be quite thin.
8. Pour batter into prepared cake pan(s).
9. Bake 30 – 40 minutes or until the cake has risen and a wooden pick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean. This can take up to an hour depending on your oven.
10. Let cake(s) cool in pan(s) for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack. Invert so that the top of the cake(s) is up and cool completely.
11. Your cake(s) might have a domed top so trim it off carefully with a long serrated knife and discard (by “discard” I mean eat with chai like I do).
12. Now your flat topped cake is ready to be frosted.

 

CHOCOLATE FUDGE FROSTING:

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup salted butter (I use Lurpak’s Slightly Salted Butter)
• 1 cup + 4 tbsp cocoa
• 5 cups icing sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract or essence
• 4 tbsp cream
• 4 tbsp milk
• Extra milk

 

METHOD

1. Melt butter in a small pan over low heat.
2. Stir in cocoa so that the mixture forms a thickish paste.
3. Add the remaining ingredients except extra milk into a mixing bowl and add the cocoa mixture.
4. Beat well until smooth.
5. Add extra milk if needed, a teaspoon at a time until frosting is of spreading consistency.
6. Sandwich the cake(s) with about a third of the frosting and use the rest to frost the top and sides and to pipe out rosettes at the top.
7. Pipe an additional layer of rosettes directly on top of the first set of rosettes for added height and a gorgeous effect. This is what I did.
8. Store frosted cake airtight and serve at room temperature – please do not serve it cold straight from the fridge!